Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Friday, June 1, 2012
Monday, May 21, 2012
Lightning + MacBook= Trouble
This was a huge mistake.
I had completely forgotten that the MacBook was plugged into an ethernet cable which was plugged into a U-Verse router. When I came home, the gf informed me that there had been several lightning strikes around the building and that the office room had lost power. I checked on the MacBook. It seemed ok. And it was ok, until the next afternoon.
Over the next day, the MacBook began to have trouble accepting a charge. The immediate effect was that I could no longer use the large monitor (it can only run off a MacBook which is plugged in). Very quickly, however, the MacBook stopped charging if the lid was open.
I took the MacBook in to the Apple Store, wherein the problem was quickly diagnosed. The ethernet port was fried, and it had damaged the charging port in the process. The solution: a new logic board. The Apple Store offered to send the MacBook to their repair depot (where the logic board would be replaced for a flat fee), but they didn't offer to back-up data. Instead, they recommended a Time Machine backup.
Backing up to Time Machine took a while with an ailing computer. During this time, I decided to contact a third party Apple support solution. I called Compuzone on West 5th. For a slightly higher price than the Apple Store, they offered to send my MacBook to the same Apple repair depot (with the same flat fee) as well as back-up my data on their server. Not only did they offer this, but they also gave me an estimate for a faster repair time.
I dropped the MacBook off last Wednesday, and it was in Compuzone this morning. It appears to be working just like it did before the lightning storm. Furthermore, Compuzone is much less crowded than the Apple Store. Overall, it was about as decent of an experience as you can have with computer repair.
Moral of the story: be careful with your MacBook in the event of a storm with intense lightning, and don't forget to run your ethernet cable through a surge protector. Also, keep an old computer around for a spare. I would have been in a lot of trouble without my MacBook had I not kept my old Dell Latitude up to date and connected at my office.
If you are interested in stopping by Compuzone, they have a store located conveniently at 5th and Lamar (in the Homeaway building).
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
AYLA Docket Call: Tomorrow
If you're looking for a good way to get warmed up for the Austin Young Lawyers' Association Retro Vegas Party, then join us tomorrow night (5:30-7:30) for our monthly Docket Call happy hour at Abel's on the Lake.
Special thanks to the Barry Law Group and Hay Compere for sponsoring.
Special thanks to the Barry Law Group and Hay Compere for sponsoring.
Events: AYLA Retro Vegas Casino Party
This Saturday is the Austin Young Lawyers' Association's annual fundraising party. This year's theme: Retro Vegas. It's going to be good, and it's open to all young professionals in Austin.
Here's one of the latest official announcements (edited by me):
AYLA’s big year-end party is Saturday, May 19, 2012!
This is NOT just another gala-type fundraiser. This is RETRO VEGAS. So ditch the tux and turn up the style for a night of fabulous entertainment on the Cesar Chavez strip next to the Four Seasons resort. Mix and mingle with showgirls, hit the craps and roulette tables, then catch the hottest shows on the strip at the Casino Lounge. Plus, there will be awards presented - the Outstanding Mentor Award to Sara Foskitt and Alumnus Award to Jan Soifer - and fabulous prizes (like a UT football signed by Mac Brown and a movie poster signed by Veruca Salt and Mike Teevee).
And best of all, proceeds benefit the nonprofit endeavors of the AYLA Foundation.
Get your RETRO VEGAS tickets TODAY.
Monday, May 14, 2012
Prism Risk Management Blog
There’s a new post on the Prism Risk Management Blog entitled: Proposed “Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights” Could Protect Businesses Using Cloud Computing, but Also Makes Them Accountable to Employees
If you are interested in this type of content, check out the Prism Risk Management Blog as the past few posts have been about cloud computing and risks involving data online.
Monday, May 7, 2012
Prism Risk Management Blog
There's a new post up at the Prism Risk Management blog about U.S. national security laws pushing other governments to nationalize the cloud computing and the resulting possible risks to your data. Check it out, and be sure to add the Prism Risk Management blog to your RSS list. Right now we're highlighting cloud computing and internet related risks but expect some new topics to be added into the mix soon.
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Events: HYP Happy Hour
We had a great time at the May 3rd Habitat Young Professionals Happy Hour. We had a good turnout from HYP members and guests invited by the event's sponsors. And, of course, we are very grateful to Maker Capital and Ameripro Funding for the their generous support of HYP and Habitat for Humanity.
Stay tuned for information about our June HYP members happy hour.
Stay tuned for information about our June HYP members happy hour.
Monday, April 30, 2012
Prism Risk Management
I am working on a fun project at Prism Risk Management. For a while, we have been thinking about expanding our consulting operation. Now, we are currently developing a new employment and HR consulting practice. I have been working with someone who has over a decade of experience with employment policy, human resources, and EEOC related experience as a trainer, investigator, and program manager. We're designing presentations to supplement services to current clients as well as a new package of services available to prospective clients.
Check in at the Prism Risk Management blog to keep track of the new developments.
Check in at the Prism Risk Management blog to keep track of the new developments.
Prism Blog
We have another post up at the Prism Risk Management blog. The latest topic is: Public Cloud Computing Has New Guidelines to Help Protect Users' Privacy and Security
Friday, April 27, 2012
Events: May 3rd Habitat Young Professionals Happy Hour
Please join the Austin Habitat Young Professionals at Hangar Lounge on May 3rd for a happy hour and fundraiser presented by our friends at Maker Capital and Ameripro Funding. Donations from this fundraiser will go toward the 2011-2012 matching grant from State Farm.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Prism Blog
The Prism Risk Management blog is back in action. The latest posting is about the Federal Government's efforts to create standards and definitions for cloud computing.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Events: HYP
Here's an update on last month's Habitat Young Professionals Build the Love Fundraiser: over $4000 was raised which will go toward building a home for a family in Austin.
Also: HYP has a happy hour coming up on 3/21 at Cuatro's. Be there.
Also: HYP has a happy hour coming up on 3/21 at Cuatro's. Be there.
Traveling
 |
| The Grand Canyon |
In addition to my recent trip to Taos Ski Valley, I've also been to Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, and Zion National Parks. I'm currently at the AGRIP Spring Conference in Phoenix, but I'm heading back to Austin for SXSW Interactive later this week. More to come...
Also, in case you are wondering: TSV now allows snowboarding.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Texas Declaration of Independence
In honor of Texas Independence Day, which is tomorrow, here is the Texas Declaration of Independence:
When a government has ceased to protect the lives, liberty and property of the people, from whom its legitimate powers are derived, and for the advancement of whose happiness it was instituted, and so far from being a guarantee for the enjoyment of those inestimable and inalienable rights, becomes an instrument in the hands of evil rulers for their oppression.
When the Federal Republican Constitution of their country, which they have sworn to support, no longer has a substantial existence, and the whole nature of their government has been forcibly changed, without their consent, from a restricted federative republic, composed of sovereign states, to a consolidated central military despotism, in which every interest is disregarded but that of the army and the priesthood, both the eternal enemies of civil liberty, the everready minions of power, and the usual instruments of tyrants.
When, long after the spirit of the constitution has departed, moderation is at length so far lost by those in power, that even the semblance of freedom is removed, and the forms themselves of the constitution discontinued, and so far from their petitions and remonstrances being regarded, the agents who bear them are thrown into dungeons, and mercenary armies sent forth to force a new government upon them at the point of the bayonet.
When, in consequence of such acts of malfeasance and abdication on the part of the government, anarchy prevails, and civil society is dissolved into its original elements. In such a crisis, the first law of nature, the right of self-preservation, the inherent and inalienable rights of the people to appeal to first principles, and take their political affairs into their own hands in extreme cases, enjoins it as a right towards themselves, and a sacred obligation to their posterity, to abolish such government, and create another in its stead, calculated to rescue them from impending dangers, and to secure their future welfare and happiness.
Nations, as well as individuals, are amenable for their acts to the public opinion of mankind. A statement of a part of our grievances is therefore submitted to an impartial world, in justification of the hazardous but unavoidable step now taken, of severing our political connection with the Mexican people, and assuming an independent attitude among the nations of the earth.
The Mexican government, by its colonization laws, invited and induced the Anglo-American population of Texas to colonize its wilderness under the pledged faith of a written constitution, that they should continue to enjoy that constitutional liberty and republican government to which they had been habituated in the land of their birth, the United States of America.
In this expectation they have been cruelly disappointed, inasmuch as the Mexican nation has acquiesced in the late changes made in the government by General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, who having overturned the constitution of his country, now offers us the cruel alternative, either to abandon our homes, acquired by so many privations, or submit to the most intolerable of all tyranny, the combined despotism of the sword and the priesthood.
It has sacrificed our welfare to the state of Coahuila, by which our interests have been continually depressed through a jealous and partial course of legislation, carried on at a far distant seat of government, by a hostile majority, in an unknown tongue, and this too, notwithstanding we have petitioned in the humblest terms for the establishment of a separate state government, and have, in accordance with the provisions of the national constitution, presented to the general Congress a republican constitution, which was, without just cause, contemptuously rejected.
It incarcerated in a dungeon, for a long time, one of our citizens, for no other cause but a zealous endeavor to procure the acceptance of our constitution, and the establishment of a state government.
It has failed and refused to secure, on a firm basis, the right of trial by jury, that palladium of civil liberty, and only safe guarantee for the life, liberty, and property of the citizen.
It has failed to establish any public system of education, although possessed of almost boundless resources, (the public domain,) and although it is an axiom in political science, that unless a people are educated and enlightened, it is idle to expect the continuance of civil liberty, or the capacity for self government.
It has suffered the military commandants, stationed among us, to exercise arbitrary acts of oppression and tyrrany, thus trampling upon the most sacred rights of the citizens, and rendering the military superior to the civil power.
It has dissolved, by force of arms, the state Congress of Coahuila and Texas, and obliged our representatives to fly for their lives from the seat of government, thus depriving us of the fundamental political right of representation.
It has demanded the surrender of a number of our citizens, and ordered military detachments to seize and carry them into the Interior for trial, in contempt of the civil authorities, and in defiance of the laws and the constitution.
It has made piratical attacks upon our commerce, by commissioning foreign desperadoes, and authorizing them to seize our vessels, and convey the property of our citizens to far distant ports for confiscation.
It denies us the right of worshipping the Almighty according to the dictates of our own conscience, by the support of a national religion, calculated to promote the temporal interest of its human functionaries, rather than the glory of the true and living God.
It has demanded us to deliver up our arms, which are essential to our defence, the rightful property of freemen, and formidable only to tyrannical governments.
It has invaded our country both by sea and by land, with intent to lay waste our territory, and drive us from our homes; and has now a large mercenary army advancing, to carry on against us a war of extermination.
It has, through its emissaries, incited the merciless savage, with the tomahawk and scalping knife, to massacre the inhabitants of our defenseless frontiers.
It hath been, during the whole time of our connection with it, the contemptible sport and victim of successive military revolutions, and hath continually exhibited every characteristic of a weak, corrupt, and tyrranical government.
These, and other grievances, were patiently borne by the people of Texas, untill they reached that point at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue. We then took up arms in defence of the national constitution. We appealed to our Mexican brethren for assistance. Our appeal has been made in vain. Though months have elapsed, no sympathetic response has yet been heard from the Interior. We are, therefore, forced to the melancholy conclusion, that the Mexican people have acquiesced in the destruction of their liberty, and the substitution therfor of a military government; that they are unfit to be free, and incapable of self government.
The necessity of self-preservation, therefore, now decrees our eternal political separation.
We, therefore, the delegates with plenary powers of the people of Texas, in solemn convention assembled, appealing to a candid world for the necessities of our condition, do hereby resolve and declare, that our political connection with the Mexican nation has forever ended, and that the people of Texas do now constitute a free, Sovereign, and independent republic, and are fully invested with all the rights and attributes which properly belong to independent nations; and, conscious of the rectitude of our intentions, we fearlessly and confidently commit the issue to the decision of the Supreme arbiter of the destinies of nations.
When a government has ceased to protect the lives, liberty and property of the people, from whom its legitimate powers are derived, and for the advancement of whose happiness it was instituted, and so far from being a guarantee for the enjoyment of those inestimable and inalienable rights, becomes an instrument in the hands of evil rulers for their oppression.
When the Federal Republican Constitution of their country, which they have sworn to support, no longer has a substantial existence, and the whole nature of their government has been forcibly changed, without their consent, from a restricted federative republic, composed of sovereign states, to a consolidated central military despotism, in which every interest is disregarded but that of the army and the priesthood, both the eternal enemies of civil liberty, the everready minions of power, and the usual instruments of tyrants.
When, long after the spirit of the constitution has departed, moderation is at length so far lost by those in power, that even the semblance of freedom is removed, and the forms themselves of the constitution discontinued, and so far from their petitions and remonstrances being regarded, the agents who bear them are thrown into dungeons, and mercenary armies sent forth to force a new government upon them at the point of the bayonet.
When, in consequence of such acts of malfeasance and abdication on the part of the government, anarchy prevails, and civil society is dissolved into its original elements. In such a crisis, the first law of nature, the right of self-preservation, the inherent and inalienable rights of the people to appeal to first principles, and take their political affairs into their own hands in extreme cases, enjoins it as a right towards themselves, and a sacred obligation to their posterity, to abolish such government, and create another in its stead, calculated to rescue them from impending dangers, and to secure their future welfare and happiness.
Nations, as well as individuals, are amenable for their acts to the public opinion of mankind. A statement of a part of our grievances is therefore submitted to an impartial world, in justification of the hazardous but unavoidable step now taken, of severing our political connection with the Mexican people, and assuming an independent attitude among the nations of the earth.
The Mexican government, by its colonization laws, invited and induced the Anglo-American population of Texas to colonize its wilderness under the pledged faith of a written constitution, that they should continue to enjoy that constitutional liberty and republican government to which they had been habituated in the land of their birth, the United States of America.
In this expectation they have been cruelly disappointed, inasmuch as the Mexican nation has acquiesced in the late changes made in the government by General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, who having overturned the constitution of his country, now offers us the cruel alternative, either to abandon our homes, acquired by so many privations, or submit to the most intolerable of all tyranny, the combined despotism of the sword and the priesthood.
It has sacrificed our welfare to the state of Coahuila, by which our interests have been continually depressed through a jealous and partial course of legislation, carried on at a far distant seat of government, by a hostile majority, in an unknown tongue, and this too, notwithstanding we have petitioned in the humblest terms for the establishment of a separate state government, and have, in accordance with the provisions of the national constitution, presented to the general Congress a republican constitution, which was, without just cause, contemptuously rejected.
It incarcerated in a dungeon, for a long time, one of our citizens, for no other cause but a zealous endeavor to procure the acceptance of our constitution, and the establishment of a state government.
It has failed and refused to secure, on a firm basis, the right of trial by jury, that palladium of civil liberty, and only safe guarantee for the life, liberty, and property of the citizen.
It has failed to establish any public system of education, although possessed of almost boundless resources, (the public domain,) and although it is an axiom in political science, that unless a people are educated and enlightened, it is idle to expect the continuance of civil liberty, or the capacity for self government.
It has suffered the military commandants, stationed among us, to exercise arbitrary acts of oppression and tyrrany, thus trampling upon the most sacred rights of the citizens, and rendering the military superior to the civil power.
It has dissolved, by force of arms, the state Congress of Coahuila and Texas, and obliged our representatives to fly for their lives from the seat of government, thus depriving us of the fundamental political right of representation.
It has demanded the surrender of a number of our citizens, and ordered military detachments to seize and carry them into the Interior for trial, in contempt of the civil authorities, and in defiance of the laws and the constitution.
It has made piratical attacks upon our commerce, by commissioning foreign desperadoes, and authorizing them to seize our vessels, and convey the property of our citizens to far distant ports for confiscation.
It denies us the right of worshipping the Almighty according to the dictates of our own conscience, by the support of a national religion, calculated to promote the temporal interest of its human functionaries, rather than the glory of the true and living God.
It has demanded us to deliver up our arms, which are essential to our defence, the rightful property of freemen, and formidable only to tyrannical governments.
It has invaded our country both by sea and by land, with intent to lay waste our territory, and drive us from our homes; and has now a large mercenary army advancing, to carry on against us a war of extermination.
It has, through its emissaries, incited the merciless savage, with the tomahawk and scalping knife, to massacre the inhabitants of our defenseless frontiers.
It hath been, during the whole time of our connection with it, the contemptible sport and victim of successive military revolutions, and hath continually exhibited every characteristic of a weak, corrupt, and tyrranical government.
These, and other grievances, were patiently borne by the people of Texas, untill they reached that point at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue. We then took up arms in defence of the national constitution. We appealed to our Mexican brethren for assistance. Our appeal has been made in vain. Though months have elapsed, no sympathetic response has yet been heard from the Interior. We are, therefore, forced to the melancholy conclusion, that the Mexican people have acquiesced in the destruction of their liberty, and the substitution therfor of a military government; that they are unfit to be free, and incapable of self government.
The necessity of self-preservation, therefore, now decrees our eternal political separation.
We, therefore, the delegates with plenary powers of the people of Texas, in solemn convention assembled, appealing to a candid world for the necessities of our condition, do hereby resolve and declare, that our political connection with the Mexican nation has forever ended, and that the people of Texas do now constitute a free, Sovereign, and independent republic, and are fully invested with all the rights and attributes which properly belong to independent nations; and, conscious of the rectitude of our intentions, we fearlessly and confidently commit the issue to the decision of the Supreme arbiter of the destinies of nations.
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